November the 22nd, 2022 - The European Union (EU) average when it comes to companies being placed in serious jeopardy because of poor financial discipline is higher than the Croatian one, but that doesn't mean that Croatian companies aren't also finding themselves in hot water more often than they should.
As Poslovni Dnevnik/Suzana Varosanec writes, almost two out of three companies operating within the European Union (EU) believe that customer payment discipline will worsen in the coming period, according to the thirteenth representative EOS survey entitled "European payment habits", in which 3,200 companies spanning sixteen different European countries, including those operating here in the Republic of Croatia, were examined.
When it comes to Croatian companies, however, things are (quite surprisingly) a little bit more optimistic than the European Union average; namely, only one in three out of four Croatian companies currently predicts a worsening of payment discipline, and as they state, a quarter of them even believe that it will improve. In comparison, back in the very successful pre-pandemic year of 2019, every other company operating in this country held the opinion that improvement was around the corner.
"Although it's less than the European Union average, the fact is that as of 2019, almost twice as many Croatian companies, based on experience, estimate the deterioration of their payment habits, while there are also significantly fewer who believe that they will improve. This is a clear indicator of future trends, given the current economic figures and high inflation," said Barbara Cerinski, the director of EOS Matrix.
Otherwise, payment habits across Europe have worsened quite significantly over the last three years, as was confirmed by this research, which points out that the above-mentioned development is causing approximately one in five companies to suffer legitimate fears for their own existence.
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